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Friday, May 9, 2014

Domestic Diva Delights Hubsters

Bone Broth. Sauerkraut. Yogurt. These may not sound like the
most exciting topics for a cooking demonstration…unless the instructor is
long-time Hub volunteer, Barbara Lehr!Barbara can make cardboard seem interesting. A natural-born-educator,
healer and doula, Barbara is passionate about taking control of her own health
and nutrition, and she loves to share her knowledge with others.

We all know we are supposed to eat healthy foods, and most
of us have a pretty good idea what those foods are, but for Barbara, nutrition
starts in the gut. “If the nutrients aren’t being absorbed and made available
to our bodies, then it doesn’t matter how well we eat,” Barbara points out in a
fermentation demo.Increasing and
diversifying the probiotics in the gut helps us digest food, and increases the
availability of nutrients. So adding fermented foods like yogurt, sauerkraut
and kim chi to your diet is an easy way to boost nutrition. It is the
foundation for improving health. If you learn how easy these foods are to make
at home, you can save money on groceries, and maybe even doctors’ bills!

She first discovered the wonders of bone broth when she
suffered a broken arm two years ago. She started making her own broth to help
heal her injury, but says she continued to use it in her diet “…because of the
increased vitality! I noticed I felt better, and had more energy, so now it’s a
regular part of our family routine.” Bone broth is a great food to share with
patrons at the food pantry, since it’s a nutrient dense food made from
something you might ordinarily throw out.

Perhaps Barbara’s greatest skill is her ability to pull
patrons from the pantry, into the kitchen for her mini demos. She sets up a few
stools in the kitchen and then approaches folks in the pantry, inviting them to
join her for a quick demonstration on making homemade yogurt, or how to roast a
whole chicken and turn the bones into a body healing soup.She can convince the most skeptical shopper to
take a seat and hear her out. Once she has a small group gathered, she launches
into her quick and passionate spiel. By the end of it, she’s fielding
questions, passing out recipes (or maybe even yogurt starters) and everyone
leaves excited to go home and give it a try. When asked how she lures so many
patrons into the kitchen week after week, she answers “I love good food, I love
people, and I know they want to be in my kitchen and learn about these things, they
just don’t know it yet. So I invite them in. It’s old fashioned hospitality.”

Barbara (aka "Domestic Diva" demonstrates the basics of roasting a chicken in the Hub Kitchen

During her two-hour shift on Fridays, Barbara usually conducts
3 or 4 rounds of her mini sessions, reaching 12-15 households with her compact,
informative demonstrations. Recently a woman came in to tell Barbara that she
had taken a yogurt starter home and made the best yogurt she ever tasted. Now
she wants to invite all her friends and neighbors over to teach them how to
make yogurt! Barbara’s tutorials are exactly what we envisioned when we first
dreamed of having a kitchen next to the food pantry. Community members share
their knowledge, skills and passions with others. Folks who may not attend a full workshop get
the benefits of our nutrition education program with minimal time investment
and maximum impact on health!

Here is a recipe for making one of those healing bone broths, Chicken Stock

note:An abbreviated version of this story appears in our Spring 2014 Harvest Report newsletter.